Hamlyn, Aristotelian Epagoge

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Aristotelian Epagoge

Author(s): D. W. HamlynSource: Phronesis, Vol. 21, No. 2 (1976), pp. 167-184Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4181988 .

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Aristotelian pagogeD. W. HAMLYN

A perhaps the, orthodox account of Aristotle's view of scientificknowledge is the following. Aristotle frequently says that wethink that we have scientific knowledge (episteme)when weknow the cause or reason why. The PosteriorAnalyticsoffers a theoryin terms of which it is revealed how the cause or reason why can beexhibited as the middle term of a demonstrative syllogism (II.11).There emerges in consequencea close connection between the notionsof knowledge and demonstration. There is however an immediateproblem how the first premises or first principles of an argumentwhich amounts to demonstration can be known. This cannot be amatter of their being explained by a reason why in the same way;otherwise we shall be involved in an infinite regress and the verypossibility of knowledgewould thereby be ruled out. For by this factwe should be prevented from giving a full demonstration of the factto be explained and would thus not have given a full explanation of it.(There are questions that might be raised here about the conceptsof knowledge and explanation involved in this, but we may pass themby for the time being; they are not without importancefor Aristotle'sphilosophy in general). For all these reasons it is incumbentuponAris-totle to explain how we can have knowledge (though not the truescientific knowledge so far considered) of the first premises of de-monstration as used in science. Aristotle provides this explanationin the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics, and there maintainsthat we come as a result of experience to an awareness or intuitionof the first principles, so that we know them not by epistemebut bynous. This is a seeing of the general principle from or in particularcases, and the process of getting to the insight in this way is epagogeor induction.I shall not really question this account of Aristotle's problem,but I am not sure whether the account of the solution is quite right.Some of my doubts arise from the place given in this account toepagoge.The account of this and indeed of the issues in general makeAristotle's work something like a contribution to the logic of scientificdiscovery (if I may usurp Popper's title). That this is what it is has

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been doubted by others (e.g. G. E. L. Owen and Jonathan Barnes).'Owen concentrates on the place that epagoge has within dialectic.In that context it must be a method of argument by which someoneis got to see some general conclusion; it will involve the use of pal-ti-cular cases to give point to a general position, and since for Aristotlethere is an intimate connection between particulars and senise-per-ception, it will also thereby involve the use of what sense-perceptioncan tell us. Aristotle frequently says that something can be seen byinduction when he wants an alternative way of showing a conclusionto be true, apart from proof.2It is important that when induction isconstrued in this way it is the use of cases to get us to see a generalmoral. It is also not without interest that when Aristotle in a wellknown passage (Met. 1078 b 28) attributes to Socrates the use ordiscovery of inductive arguments, he cannot have in mind thatSocrates used to survey cases and abstract a generalmoral from them.For this, despite what some commentatorsseem to think, is not whatSocrates does, at any rate in the dialogues. Rather Socrates usesparticularcases or instances of a general principle to bring home thatgeneral principle itself or a further instance of it. This form of argu-ment is of course dialectical in a very Aristotelian sense (accordingto the account given in Topics 1.1); it starts fromwhat the other partyto the debate will accept and seeks to persuade him of soinethingthat follows from this. In this sense the argument has nothing verymuch in common with what has come in modern times to be called'ampliative induction' - generalizing from observed instances;rather it is a form of argument from analogy, in the sense that theother party to the debate is got to see the analogy between cases andthat analogy is used to get a further conclusion.Another point in this connection is that in many places in his worksAristotle contrasts and thereby sets into relation epagogewith apodeixisor syllogismos3. There is also in the Prior Analytics the odd passage,though not perhapsso odd as all that, where he speaksof and gives anI G. E. L. Owen 'Tithenai ta Phainomena' in Aristote et les problemes de lamithode, Louvain 1961 (reprinted in Aristotle, ed. J. M. E. Moravcsik, Londoln,1968, pp. 167-190); J. Barnes, 'Aristotle's Theory of Demonstration', Phronesis,14 (1969) 123-152: against these may be set a recent paper by James Lesher,'The Meaning of Nous in the Posterior Analytics', Phronesis 18 (1973) 44-68,which, to my mind, makes rather heavy weather of the notion of nous.2 cf. e.g. Met. 1054 b 33, 1055 a 6, b 17.' cf. e.g. Pr.A. 42 a 3, Post. An. 81 a 40, Top. 105 a 5, Met. 992 b 33 - thereare many other such passages.168


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example of an inductive syllogism - so that epagogeis not simplyopposed to syllogismosbut characterised as a peculiar form of this.It is perhaps worth noting that the Oxford Translation renders thebeginning of this passage at 68 b 15 as 'Now induction, or rather thesyllogism which springs out of induction...'4. The words 'or rather'presumably express the feeling of the translator that epagoge s notitself an argument and that Aristotle must therefore be qualifyinghis first referenceto epagoge f he is to go on to specify an argumentas he in fact does. I am inclinedto think that the 'rather' s a mistake;it is more likely that the 'xxi' is to be taken as an 'i.e.' or at least aspecificationrather than a qualification.The passageindicates nothingwhich suggests that Aristotle wants to distinguish between epagogeas a process of discovery and the argument or arguments associatedwith that.It is undoubtedly the case, therefore, that Aristotle sometimestreats epagogeas a form of argument different from but somehowparallel to demonstration. It is parallel just in that it is a form ofargument for the truth of some proposition; it is different in that itdoes not constitute a form of proof. It is a dialectical argument and issubject to the conditions that Aristotle lays down about dialecticin the first chapter of the Topics.Thereare some passages on the otherhand which associate epagogeclosely with sense-perceptionand mighttherefore be taken as indicating that it is, in Aristotle's mind, some-times at any rate a means by which knowledge is derived from sense-perception. The question is whether this last point follows simplyfrom the association with sense-perception. Post. An. 78 a 34 saysthat the truth that that which does not twinkle is near must be taken,in the context of the argument there consideredby way of example,to be grasped 'through induction or through sense-perception'.Whether the 'or' is an 'i.e.' or whether it expresses a genuine alter-native, the passage cannot be taken as indicating that epagogeis aprocess of acquisition of knowledge, since it is clear that even if con-sideredas an argument it can make use of facts discoveredthroughsense-perception;hence the phrase'through nduction' does not clinchanything. A passage which may seem more promising at first sightis Post. An. 81 b 6 ff where Aristotle says that one cannot haveepistemeof particulars - 'for neither can one get to them from uni-versals (sc. universal propositions)without epagoge,nor can one get to4 The Greek is 'Emycoy? ,Lv o5v la'L xod 6 F brocycyiYauXoyWt *.

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them through epagoge without sense-perception'. But of course thepassage does not say that one gets the knowledge of the universalas the resultof a processwhichstarts fromthe facts of sense-perception.It says rather that the application of general principlesto particularcases presupposes epagogeand that the application of epagogeitselfpresupposes sense-preception. The latter is true when epagoge isconsideredas a form of argument- the use of cases in generalargumentpresupposes sense-perception as a means of getting experience ofthe cases.The earlier part of the remark has an interest of its own. For itsuggests, as I have already expressed the point, that epagoge s in-volved in the applicationof general principlesto cases, not just in theargument for the general principles themselves.5 Well, so it can bewhen epagoge s seen as a formof argument,but scarcelywhenseen as aprocessof discovery. One might set this part of the passage alongsideanother which also has its own particular nterest, and to which I shallreturnlater. This is Pr. An. 67 a 2, where Aristotle criticises the argu-ment of Plato's Meno for the existence of recollection and the thesisthat this is what learningis. He says 'It never happens that we knowthe particularpreviously, but we get the knowledgeof the instances(Mrvrv xceTx etpos'7rtovzuv) longwith epagoge,recognisingthem asit were. For we know some things immediately, e.g. when we see thatit is a triangle, that its angles are equal to two right angles. Andsimilarly in other cases.' The Oxford Translationovertranslatesagain,speaking of 'the process of being led to see the general principle'where 'epagoge'alone is mentioned. The example of the trianglesuggests that the immediate knowledge, the recognition,is of the factthat a particularfalls under a general principleor description.Seeinga triangle is ipso facto knowing that it is a figure of a certain generalkind. If we put this into relationship with the exposition of thedoctrine of recollection in the Meno, we can see that Aristotle isconstruing the problem presented in that dialogue as how one comesto recognisethat particularfigure as the one which... (that square asthe one which has an area twice that of a given square). And he issaying that one recognisesit immediately without any foreknowledgebeing presupposedalong with epagoge.What does this mean?It cannot surely mean that one recognisesit along with the process6 It might be noted again that the application of principles to cases is an essen-tial part of the Socratic arguments that Aristotle calls 'inductive', cf. R. Robin-son, Plato's Earlier Dialectic ch. 4.170


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of being led to see the general principle, if that means abstracting thegeneral principlefrom particulars.But of course in the Meno the boyis led to see the general principle in a sense. For in seeing that thesquare drawn on the diagonal of the original square is the one whichis twice the areaof the originalsquarehe ipso facto sees a generalprin-ciple that all squareswhich are twice the area of a given squarehave aside equal to the diagonalof that square.And that is what Aristotlesaysby means of his example of the triangle. Socrates in the Menoemploysepagogebecause he uses the example to point to the general moral,and in seeing the particulasas an instance of the generalprincipletheboy sees the general principle itself. And if we think, despite whatSocrates is made to claim in the Meno, that the case of learning istoo closely assimilated to one in which there is positive teaching, itmight be pointed out that the processof discovery might be representedas one in which the learnertreats cases in an analogousway. That is tosay that the learner comes to see the application of the generalprinciple to a case as a result of constructing andusing suitable cases.It is the latter that is epagogenot the final getting of insight. If one candescribe this final insight, as Aristotle does right at the end of thePosterior Analytics,6 as nous, which most interpreters construe asintuition, epagoges not just the transition to that state; ratherit is thatwhich makes it possible.I think that we shouldinterpretsimilarly thosepassages, e.g. E.N. 1139 b 28, which say that epagoge s the arche ofto katholou, while syllogism or demonstration is ek tou katholou; thereis no necessary suggestion here that epagoge s merely the process ofgetting to the state of knowledgeof the generalor universal.With all this in mind we can now approachthe famous passage inthe last chapter of the Posterior Analytics in which Aristotle dealswith the problem of knowledge of first principles. This is importantfor our purposes because he there gives an account of the originsof knowledgein a genetic way that makes the account a contributionto what Piaget has called 'genetic epistemology' (not psychology,since what Aristotle is concerned to do is to make clear the generalterms in which an account of the development of knowledge is to begiven, not to give that account itself in detail). This might not beso important in itself, but at the end he says (100b 3) 'It is clear thenthat we must recognise the first (principles)by induction (epagoge);for sense perceptionintroduces the universal in this way'. 'In this way'

cf. E.N. 1140 b 31 ff.171


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may perhaps refer to the genetic account just offered. Does not thisimply that that account is a descriptionof epagoge tself? And if thatis the case, must not epagogebe, at least sometimes, the process ofacquiringgeneralknowledge?If I may declaremy hand straight away,may I indicate that I think that the answeris 'No' or 'Not necessarily'.But to assess that conclusionit is best to look at the genetic accountitself in some detail. It is of course repeated in less detail at the be-ginning of the Metaphysics.Strictly speaking Aristotle does not raise the issues that he wishesto discuss in the form of the problemhow we can have knowledgeoffirst principles if scientific knowledge involves demonstration fromfirst principles. He is not, overtly at any rate, influenced here bysceptical considerations about the possibility of knowledge unless ithas a firmfoundationin knowledgeof first principles.As in other partsof his philosophy Aristotle was less impressed by sceptical consider-ations about the possibility of knowledge (of whatever kind) than de-termined to understandthe nature of that knowledgeand its place inrelation to other forms of knowledgeand to present us with an accountof that understanding.To say that we have nous or intuition of firstprincipleswould scarcely satisfy the sceptic, even when that claim isbuttressed with an account of its origins. But it does do something,even if not very much, to answer the question of the nature of thatknowledge, given that it cannot be like the knowledge that we maymay have of the subject matter of particularsciences. Hence Aristotlestates his general question at 99 b 17 as 'How do the first principlesbecome known and what is the knowing state?' In view of whatfollows we perhaps ought to note the use of the word 'hexis', foralthoughit is a commonplacethat Aristotleregardsknowledge(at leastin the dispositional sense) as a hexis it is noteworthy that he alsoregards moral virtue as the same, and there may be some similaritybetween his account of the origins of moral virtue and his account ofthe origins of knowledge of principles.However this may be, Aristotle goes on to say that his generalquestion may be clarifiedby consideringsome preliminaryproblems.The first set of problemsraised are in effect elaborationsof the generalquestion - whether knowledge of unmediated facts is the same ordifferent from knowledge of the mediated, whether both forms ofknowledge are episteme,or whether knowledge of the first principles(the unmediatedfacts to which I have referred) s of a differentkind.His final answer to the general question, or at least the second half172


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of it - what is the knowing state? - is an answer to these questionstoo: it is nous rather than episteme.But he finally throws in a differentissue - whether the states in question come into being without beinginnate or whether they are innate but in such a way that we are notaware of having them. Why doeshe raise this issue? It seems to me thatthe question must have some reference to the issues raised in theMeno, just as the explicit reference at Pr. An. 67 a 22 to which Ireferredearlier.7 Aristotle obviously wants us to become clear aboutwhat learning consists in. More than this, there is some connectionbetween what Aristotle says, even if that connection is oblique,and the dilemmaput fowardby Menothat led to Socrates' thesis aboutrecollection. For Aristotle says by way of comment on his question -'It would be strange if we had the principlesfrom birth; for it wouldfollow that we had forms of knowledge more accurate than demon-stration without being aware of this. While if we acquiredthem withoutpreviously having them, how would we recognise them and learnwithout pre-existing knowledge as a basis? For that is impossible aswe said in the case of demonstrationtoo.' The last remarkseems to be areference to the first chapter of Book 1 of the Posterior Analytics,where Aristotle begins with the principle that all teaching and learningof an intellectual kind arises fromand depends uponpreviously existingknowledge. (That principle, incidentally, illustrates the extent towhich Aristotle thinks of demonstration not just as a method for thejustification of truth-claims per se, let alone the ascertainmentof truth in an absolute sense, but as part of a learning context inwhich different people participate with different teaching/learningroles.8 The principleitself seems to me correct, but I shall not go intothat now.) Later in the first chapter of the Posterior Analytics Aris-totle makes another explicit reference to the Meno.

In this passage (71 a 29) Aristotle refers directly to the dilemmathat Meno puts forward in that dialogue and offers a distinctionwhich, he claims, deals with it; and he goes on to reject another pro-posed solution. For our purposes, perhaps, it is unfortunate thatAristotle confines his attention to one kind of learning situation - thatin which the learner, given a knowledge of a general principle, learnsthat a particularis an instance of it - that this triangle is an instance7That the issues here have something to do with those raised in the Menois by no means an original suggestion; cf. e.g., K. R. Popper, Conjectures andRefutations, p. 12.8 cf. Jonathan Barnes, op.cit.

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of the general principlethat all triangles have angles jointly equal totwo right angles, or that this pair is an instance of the principle thatall pairs are equal. I say 'unfortunate' simply because Aristotle'sremarksdo not necessarilyapply in this form to all cases of learning;but they are of course very pertinent to what I have already saidabout epagoge,since we have here again an example of the interplaybetween knowledge of principles and knowledge of cases, which isessential to our understanding of how epagoge works. Aristotle'ssolution to the Meno dilemma - that the learner knows somethingthat holds of an instance &7rt?o before the learning process, but thathe does not know it &Mt?q, but only xo6&0*?ou,n a general way, appliesonly to the case of learning that he has in mind; it will not work,for example, in the case of the acquisitionof knowledgeof the generalprinciplesthemselves. And in the last chapterof the PosteriorA nalyticswe seem to be concernedwith just this. Nevertheless Aristotle seemsright in a generalway in his approachto the Menodilemma.It is to beresolvedonly by the recognitionthat, if we are to come to know some-thing by learning we must already know somethingabout, somethingthat is relevant to, what is being learnt. In a sense Plato himselfrecognises this, but perhaps owing to the limitations in his conceptionof knowledge, he seems in the Meno itself to suppose that we musthave prior knowledgeof the very thing that is to be learnt. If allacquisition of knowledge is learning, and if all learninginvolves priorknowledgeof the thing to be learnt, we shall be involved in an infiniteregress, from which we can be saved only by a denial of one or otherof the protases of my conditional. I do not know whether Plato sawthe danger of the regress, but the development of the doctrine of re-collection in the Phaedo, in a way that makes the prior knowledgeknowledgeof Forms, if that is meant to provide us with a general ac-count of learning with respect to particulars (a matter on which wemight have some doubt), gets him off the hook. It does so in a way thatmakes his view close to that of Aristotle in the sense that it involves arelationshipbetween knowledge of universals and knowledgeof parti-culars. In generalhowever Plato seems content with the view that wealready know implicitly what we are to come to know and the piocessof learninginvolves making what is implicit completely explicit9.With all this in mind let us now return to the last chapter of the9 cf. on this, Plato's treatment of a connected issue in his development of theaviary model in the Theaetetus; this depends again on the distinction between-implicit and explicit knowledge, and it is clearly not enough for his purposes.174


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PosteriorAnalytics.He wishes, as we have seen, to reject the suggestionthat we can learn without previous knowledge,so that if the followingpiece of genetic epistemology is construed as a theory of learning inwhich knowledge emerges out of something which is not knowledgeit will be an account that breaks that principle. And that, surely,would be odd. On the other hand Aristotle will have nothing of thesuggestion, which is Platonic, that we already know innately exactlywhat we come to know in learning. For, as we have seen, he arguesthat it would be very odd if we had knowledgeof a degreeof accuracywhich exceeds that which we have as a result of demonstration andknew nothing of it. That is to say, given that the problem isconcerned with our coming to know first principles, it would be veryodd to suggest that we know these innately, since we arequite unawareof being born with such knowledgeand yet the knowledgeis supposedex hypothesinot to be something vague and indefinite but somethingquite precise. Given what we have seen of the kind of answer thatAristotle has given to the problem of the Menodilemma in connectionwith the application of principles to cases, we ought to expect ananalogous if not identical answer to the problem of our acquisitionof knowledgeof the principlesthemselves. It will not exactly do, thatis, to say that we know the principles xoc6Xoubut not &7rXg, butwe might expect an analogous distinction to be made. Is this thecase?What he actually says is that we must possess a dunamis of somesort, but not one which is higher in respect of accuracy than the statesof knowledge which are to develop. His use of the word 'dunamis'together with his earlier use of 'hexis' with regard to the developedstates of knowledge should indicate to us that we may expect an ac-count of the development of hexeis out of dunameis parallel to, say,the development of moral states out of natural potentialities, or atleast one which is in accordancewith his usual theory of hexeis anddunameis. And so it turns out; for the subsequent account is onewhich involves habituation as a result of the repetition of the exerciseof natural potentialities. In the case of moral virtue however the stateor capacity developed in this way by habituation is said to be in-complete without practical wisdom. It is therefore reasonablethat weshould seek something else apart from a state of mind (if that is theright word) produced by habituation if we are to look for the finalaccount of knowledgeof first principles. But first the process of habitu-ation itself. As an account of the origins of such knowledge I do not

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think that it is really coherent any more than the suggestion thatstates of moral charactercan be produced by habituation.Aristotle says that all animals have an inborn discriminative po-tentiality, namely sense-perception.One might be inclined to translate'xp'rtxW' as 'for judgment' rather than 'discriminative' since DeAnima III (and to a lesser extent II) associates sense-perceptionwithjudgment and it is clear that while Aristotlehas in mind in this mainlydiscrimination,he means also to use the notion more widely to coverany perceptual judgment. To the extent that he does so, of course,the more sense-perception must be seen to involve the intellect.This involvement would, however, be foreign to anything that couldbe called a natural potentiality. Hence while the wider translationperhapsbegs fewer questions in general, there can be little doubt thatAristotle has discrimination in mind here. Still the theory of sense-perception that he invokes here is summary only and the relation ofdiscrimination to the aisthema that is said to persist in some animalsis left obscure, as is equally the question exactly what an aisthema s.The persistence of the aisthema is however said to be a necessarycondition of knowledge outside the perception itself so that animalsin which an aisthemadoes not persist lack either knowledgealtogetheror at least knowledge of the object of perception in question. Laterthe persistence of the aisthema is equated with memory. The theorypresupposed is crude; memory just is the persistence of a sense-impression, however this comes about. But the crudity is to beexpected if one state of mind or capacity is to be thought of as de-veloped out of earlierand more 'natural' states by a processof habitu-ation. For the means by which this comes about must on that accountbe mechanicalonly.The next stage of development perhaps presents even greaterdifficulties. For he says that there is a further distinction to be madebetween animals in which there is the persistence of aisthemaso fardiscussed, in that in some but some only there comes about from thepersistence of such things logos. What does this mean? The OxfordTranslation speaks of a 'power of systematizing them', but this issurely to read things into the text, or at any rate to be overprecise.What we need is surely something closer to 'rationality'. Later in thepassage Aristotle identifies this state as empeiria- experience - andspeaks of it being a state in which the universal is established in thesoul, the one over the many. Some have seen in this the idea thatAristotle is giving an account of concept formation, but this is surely176


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not quite right. What he is saying is that experience is the state inwhich a single universalis applied to cases - it is seeing things as suchand suches, and so involves the ability to use judgment in a full-blown discursive sense. Hence my point about rationality, thoughit might be enough to translate 'logos'simply as 'judgment'. In otherwords some animals, but some only, have the ability to use concepts inrelation to experience. Aristotle does not say how this comes aboutfrom having memory, or as he says later, from the repetition of mem-ories. The implication is that it happens again from habituation, butit is really impossible to see how. However we regard the rest ofAristotle's story, there appears to be a definite lacuna in the theoryhere.There appears to be a lacuna at the next stage also, when he saysthat experience is the source (arche)of art (techne)and science or theo-retical knowledge (episteme); or Aristotle gives no indication at thispoint how these things have their source in experience. MetaphysicsA. 1 is a little more informative but only to the extent of saying moreabout the differences between experience on the one hand and artand knowledge on the other. The last two, for example, are said tohave more concern with universals, they involve knowledge of thereason why, and those that possess them can teach others. None ofthis is said to be applicable to experience, and in various ways this istrue. Empeiria has been said to involve universals in one sense - inthat it involves the application of universals to cases in judgment;but it does not involve the ability to consider universals for their ownsake in a way that is demanded of strictly universal judgments. It isthis same factor which explains the other distinguishing marks -the points that the knower knows the reason why and can teach others.For these things would not be possible unless one went beyond mereexperience in such a way as to grasp the principles which lie behind itand in terms of which genuine knowledge is to be expressed. Yet itis to be noted once again that Aristotle does not tell us at the pointwhich we have reached in the Posterior Analytics or in the Meta-physics passage how knowledge of principles is arrived at, althoughthe latter suggests at 981 a 5 that it comes about througha repetitionof experientialjudgments.The same is true of the next sentences in the Posterior Analytics(100 a 9 ff), in which he introduces his famous illustration of the routin battle. That simile is not altogether perspicuous. Presumably itspoint is to illustrate how from a flux of some sort something stable

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can result. This happens as a result of the piling up of instances justas a stable formation in battle can come about by one man afteranother standing firm; the effect is cumulative. It is to be presumedthat one factor in the image - the fact that the stable formationthatcomes into being is the same as the originalone - is irrelevant to thesituation being illustrated. Otherwisewe should indeed be back withthe Platonic solution to the problemof how learningis possible, sincethe doctrineof recollectionas described n the Menodoesperhaps makethe regaining of the original knowledge come about by repetition ofreminders.10The summary that follows in the PosteriorAnalytics has the samecharacteristics and defects. It is this passage over which there hasbeen most argument as to whether Aristotle is concerned with con-cept formation or knowledge as reflected in more and more generalpropositions. I do not myself think that it much matters which onesays since I think the two are correlative, and I suspect that Aristotlethought so too. Insofar as in the account offered so far Aristotle hastalked of universalsit is in terms of their applicationto cases - some-thing that implies judgment. To have a concept of X is among otherthings to kinowwhat sort of thing an X is and a fortiorito know whatkindof things can be called 'X'; and this knowledgeis clearly, and in avery good sense, propositional. Hence, no matter what terms are usedin the summary that we are about to consider Aristotle is as muchconcerned with the development of generalknowledgeas with that ofgeneral concepts. What he says is that there is first a universal in thesoul when one of the undifferentiated things (adiaphora)has madea stand; and he illustrates h1owthis works in sense perceptionby oneof his familiarreferencesto the fact that while we perceiveparticulars10 cf. in this Socrates' point at Meno 85 c that the boy's state will becomeknowledge only as a result of repeated and varied questions. It is often presumedthat the function of these questions is to allow the boy to achieve a kind ofinsight into the reasons for the conclusion to which he has come, and that thisis what is referred to when it is said at 98 a that true beliefs can be turnedinto knowledge by tying them down by el'r(mqXoym:s-. I am less than surethat this is the right interpretation; apart from anything else the 'rt which isthe subject of the sentence referring to the tying down may well refer to theteacher, so that the calculation of cause is something carried out by the teacher.In that case the distinction between knowledge and true belief rests merely onthe stability of the former, and the account will differ from Aristotle's merelyin that on Plato's view what is learnt is not really new knowledge, but oldknowledge regained.178


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the perception is of universals (in other words we perceive Calliasbut what we perceive of him is man, i.e. we perceive him as a man,not, as Aristotle puts it, merely as Callias man). The adiaphoraarepresumably things which are undifferentiated prior to the act ofperception, and they become differentiated only by making a stand,whatever that is to be taken to mean. The same thing happens towhat they are differentiatedas, so that by increasingfamiliarity withman we come to see man as an animal of such and such a kind, andthen as animal generally, and so on. The whole process is a tendencyto greater and greater generality because of the way in which what ismorespecific and particular becomesfixed and then subject to furtherrepetition.Unfortunately the account, if represented n this way, is incoherent.What is presumably supposed to happen is that in a welter of undif-ferentiated items that affect our sensessome come to stand out becauseof their very repetition; the process is thus entirely mechanical.I shall not go throughall the possibleobjections to this kind of account,but I shall mention one or two. In the first place the account is totallya priori; we have little real idea of the relation between the character-istics of the world that we differentiate and their degree of repetitionin experience. Is it plausibleto suppose that we differentiatemen, say,fromcertain other objects, becausewe experiencemenmorefrequently?And as opposed to what objects - trees, for example? Suppose wethink of the matter at a different level and considerhow we come todistinguish colours. We have to suppose that distinct colours areinitially undifferentiated, but they become differentiated becausethey each 'make a stand' as a result of their repetition in experience.But what is the principle of selection here, given that many differenthues will affect oursense-organswith varying but unknownfrequency?If we were to suppose that the sense-organsthemselves had inbuilttendencies to differentiation in reaction we should be given thereby aprincipleof selection - as to why among the indefinitely gradedvaria-tion of hues some are picked out so as to provide a basis for a concep-tion of red, blue etc. Repetition by itself seems however an emptyexplanation.I think that the truth is that Aristotle, ike many others who haveoffered this kind of explanation, has in mind the fact that once givenexperience in general we can come to focus on certain things withinexperiencebecause of the frequency of their occurrence; our attentionmay be drawnto them just because of their repetition. But that could

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explain only why some things are differentiated from others, not thegeneral process of differentiation from a state in which nothing isdifferentiatedfrom anything else. It is also worth noting that there isno reasonto suppose that the growthof understandingof the world is amatter of increasing generality, as seems to be supposed in the sug-gestion that we proceed from man to such and such kind of animaland from there to animal in general - and there is good reason tosuppose that this is not how it is. Rather the growth of experienceis not just a matter of sorting things out into wider and wider classes,but at least also and correlatively a matter of sorting things out fromwider classifications. It is a familiar point made by many recentphilosophers, for example, that one could not come to know what redis without at least some knowledge of what colour is and perhapsof the ways in which colours may be related to each other and toother things and their other properties. It is noteworthy in thisrespect that Aristotle's scale of generality is not, as he presents it,quite linear; he moves from man not to, say, vertebrate,and from thereto animal, but fromman to such and such a kind of animal, somethingthat already presupposesfor its intelligibility the wider classification.I shall not go on harping on this theme. If Aristotle really intendsthis to be an account of the genetic epistemology which he thinksunderpins our knowledge of first principles it is not very plausible.It is in fact no more plausible than the suggestion that our under-standing of moral principles has as its foundation habituation - forthe account is similar in kind. I doubt whether Aristotle's account ineither sphere can be saved, but perhapswe ought to considerfurtherwhetherit is all that lie intends. After all, as I said earlier n this paper,the virtue that is produced through habituation is said to be incom-plete without practical wisdom. Moreoverthere is no referencein thegenetic account of the development of knowledge to teaching or thepart played by other people in upbringing,whereas at the beginningof E.N. II Aristotle does at least say that the intellectual virtues arisefrom and are increased by teaching. With this in mind let us look atAristotle's next remarkin the Posterior Analytics. It is usually takenas his final summing up of the genetic account before he draws hisconclusion and says that it must be by nous that we know the firstprinciples.His words are 'It is clear then that we must recognisethe first prin-ciples by induction (epagoge); for indeed perception introduces(inplants) the universal in this way'. I said earlierin this paper that180


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the words 'in this way' may refer to the genetic account. They may,however, refer back to the referenceto induction and they are so takenby the OxfordTranslation,which translates 'for the method by whicheven sense-perception mplants the universal is inductive.' But even ifinduction is thought to be a process of coming to know something itis not strictly true that the way in which sense-perception implantsorintroduces the universal is a matter of induction. For on that accountof induction it must still be the means by which one comes to knowl-edge of a generaltruth fromsense-perception.But before one comes tothat stage the universal has already been brought into existence, onAristotle's own account. For he has said that there is first a universalin the soul when one of the adiaphorahas made a stand. Hence whenone has come to the point of seeing somethingas something a universalhas in that sense been introduced to or implanted in the soul. I do notthink, therefore, that it could rightly be said that perceptionimplantsthe universal by induction, even if induction were a process of acqui-sition of knowledge of a universal truth from experience. Because ofthis I think that the words 'in this way' mustbe taken as referringback to the genetic account, and that, or at least the part about therole of sense-perception, is offered as the reason why it must be thecase that we recognise the first principlesby induction.It must be rememberedthat Aristotle's original question was 'Howdo the first principlesbecome known and what is the knowing state?'He did not ask 'How is it possible for them to be known?', a questionwhich would be pertinent if his considerations were influenced byscepticism, but not necessarily otherwise. I think that as with thequestions about demonstration that he raises at the beginning of thePosterior Analytics, he means to ask how scientific truths and firstprinciples respectively become known by a learner. The question isneither the sceptically orientated one about the possibility of suchknowledge nor one which belongs to the logic of scientific discoveryin the sense that it asks how knowledgecan justifiably be thought tocome about not in the individual but in general. Hence it is not to beanswered by on the one hand a refutation of the sceptic or a Kantiantranscendental deduction of the possibility of such knowledge, or onthe other hand by something parallel to saying that one must put upthe boldest hypothesis, and subject it to the most stringent tests.For he is not concerned with justification of knowledge claims.If on the other hand one had already explained that John Smithcould be got to see the truth of, say, some proposition about the

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essential attributes of members of a given species by demonstrationthat it must be so, a pertinent comment might well be 'That is allvery well, but how could John Smith be got to see the truth of theinitial premisses?Moreover f you say that what John Smith will havein the first case is episteme and that this involves seeing why the truthin questionmust be so, what he has whenhe sees the truth of the prem-isses cannot be episteme. So what is it?' Taking these questions back-wards, Aristotle'sanswers seem to me to be 'Well he sees that it mustbe so; not of course in the literal sense of 'see' which implies sense-perceptiondirectlybut in a sense that impliesa formof direct awarenessof which some forms at least of sense-perception are particularcases. And secondly he can be got to see this by appeal to cases whichof course presupposes sense-perception,and that is what epagoge is.'What then is the relevanceof the genetic account?Surelythe answermust be that it is meant to provide a frameworkof genetic epistemo-logy in terms of which the notion of epagoge can be given a sense.For, of course, it is no good using epagoge unless the human mind issuch that it can grasp it and make use of what is revealed to it bythat means. It must be shown that people have the capacities thatmake appeal to epagoge in their case relevant. They must be capableof seeing the relevance of a number of cases knowledge,of which in-volves sense-perception,to ageneral principle. For that to be the casethey must be capableof seeinga particularas an instanceof a universal;and in saying this we are in the middle of the genetic account. Indeedif we were able to construe the stages of that account as merely pro-viding the necessary, but not the sufficient, conditionsof what followsin each case, e.g. there must be repetition of perceptionsof somethingif there is to be memory of it, then the account might be free of manyof the objections that might otherwise be brought against it. Forobjections such as those which I mentioned earlierare largely, if notentirely, directedagainst the thesis that what happens at one stage is,when repeated, a sufficient condition for the development of the nextstage; and it is clear that it cannot be anything of the kind. (Onemight argue analogously that habituation is a necessary but by nomeans sufficient condition of the developmentof virtue; and the sameapplies to all those cases where Aristotle speaks of a hexis developingout of a previous dunamis as a result of the repeating exercise oractualization of the former.) The genetic accouint s thus not an ac-count of epagoge itself but an account of what capacities must cometo exist in human-beings if epagoge is to be used with advantage.182


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It remains true that an individual will come to see the truth of firstprinciples only if he is got to see this (the word 'recognise'which isused with respect to knowledge of first principles in this chapter ofthe PosteriorAnalytics is thus pertinent); and he will be got to see itif he is taught by others through an appeal to cases or perhaps if hefollows a similartechniquewith regardto himself.In the latter case of course the individual will have to possessabilities additionalto the hexis that is acquiredaccordingto the geneticaccount, just as for the acquisition of complete virtue a man will, onAristotle's account, have to have additional abilities apart from themoral hexeis that he will have acquired through habituation. More-over the additional abilities will function in very much the same way.For just as the scientistwill have anacquiredcapacityforgeneralizationabout the world, which needs to be supplemented by an intellectualfacility for connecting this with cases if it is to be fruitful in enablinghim to see scientificprinciples,so the moralagent will have an acquiredcapacity for generalization about moral conduct which needs to besupplemented by an intellectual facility for connecting this with casesif this is to be fruitful in enabling him to see moral principles.Thereare of course differences too which Aristotle sets out in the Nico-macheanEthics, differences which stem on the whole from the factthat ethics is a practical science and moral philosophy is concernedwith practice, while science as ordinarily understood is theoreticaland its philosophy equally concernedwith theory. So different thingsare presupposed n the pursuit of these subjects. Nevertheless there isalso a certain parallelism. If I am to teach someone to be moral Imust presuppose in him both a general moral disposition or state ofcharacter and an ability to see the relevance of particular moraljudgments to general moral principles; and the same applies if I ammy own teacher. The main differencehere fromwhat holds good in theacquisition of scientific knowledge is, as Aristotle says in E.N. I.4.,that the ability to make correct particular moral judgments takeslonger to acquire than that to make correct particular judgmentsabout matters of fact. Given all this it is as much misleading to saythat for Aristotle moral principles are acquired by habituation as tosay that for him scientific principlesare so acquired.For the principlesthemselves are acquiredonly by appeal to cases in the light of what isacquired by habituation - the hexisin question.

It might be argued that Aristotle would have saved himself frombeing misunderstood if he had first said something about epagoge183


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in answer to his question as set out in the last chapter of the PosteriorAnalytics and then gone on to ask what it is that must be the caseabout human-beings and their psychical capacities (in the Aristoteliansense of 'psychical'of course)if the use of epagoges to be both possibleand fruitful. I think that this would be fair comment. I doubt ifeven then the genetic account could be completely saved from in-coherence, but it would be a much better account than it seems atfirst sight and would provide a truer expressionof what, as I believe,Aristotle wanted to say.BirkbeckCollege,Universityo/ London

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Documents

Hamlyn, Aristotelian Epagoge